Hard
by Aki4
Summary: Just a short peek into the Ikkou's lives, and what makes them so *smirk* hard. Implied pairings.


Ok, sorry guys ^^;; Due to the fact that I failed to a) edit out the most basic of typos due to my bleary-eyed impatience to post, and b) footnote a few references which doubtless failed to make sense to the average non- Buddhist reader (note: I am not a Buddhist, and don't pretend to understand them, the wise ol' buggers), I am now submitting the somewhat-edited-and- sloppily-footnoted version. Enjoy. (I hope.)  
  
Oh yes--thanks for those of you who reviewed. Gods bless your generous little hearts. Bloody hell, wish I really were as deep as you say! =) I'd give up trying to be an accountant *grin*. On the positive side, I think I have been inspired to write another Saiyuki fic...  
  
And I'm really, really sorry...*hangs head* but it's just not IN me to write straight pairings for this fandom, apart from those that are canon (i.e., Kou and Yaone.) Gojyo and Hakkai, in my opinion, pretty much beg to be slashed, and I'm too damn conservative to want to pair them up with any of the bad guys. *eheh* Leaves me kinda limited, I know, I know... *sigh*  
  
And now...the story. Again.  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Hard By Aki  
  
It's hard. Oh, it's hard to be Son Goku, with his never-ending appetite for all things, especially life.  
  
When there is nothing on the outside you turn around and try to dig the other way, and dig and dig and dig just to create something, even if it's only a hole.  
  
Five hundred years can create a big hole, and an even bigger emptiness to fill it.  
  
And then the day came when someone heard, and came, and he didn't know that he had been crying until it happened. Didn't know that he had a voice.  
  
If someone screams in the night and no one hears it, does that voice exist?  
  
But someone heard it, and came.  
  
.................................  
  
"Sanzou, Sanzou!! Can we stop? Look, she has food!!" The jeep bounced along the ruts of another road, on its way to another village. Another dot on the map, and each dot lay just a little further to the west.  
  
"Idiot ape," Gojyo muttered, the epithet dulled by the cigarette clenched firmly between his teeth. "That's not food, that's a frickin' haystack she's carrying." In this part of the countryside the only tall things were the trees. The peasants were brown and bent and toiled like ants under their loads.  
  
"Actually, I believe it's a wheat sheaf," Hakkai noted. Hakkai saw many things without having to look for them, because he knew they would be there. Goku wished that he could see like Hakkai, but it was asking too much. He could see the golden wheat and the burning blue sky and the wild birds scattering upwards when the men came too close, and that was so much that his eyes nearly overflowed with tears. He didn't need to see like Hakkai. It was enough to see like Goku.  
  
"Wheat," he repeated, then rounded on Gojyo. "See? It IS food!"  
  
"That's not FOOD to anyone but an idiot monkey. Food is when she makes it into bread, and all sorts of stuff has to happen in between. Na, Hakkai?" He appealed to their arbitrator, who smiled. It didn't mean anything, or if it did, you would never know it, that smile. Gojyo knew it. He'd seen it often enough.  
  
"Shall you chide the wheat because it is not bread? Or beat a man for being in the middle of the road?" Sanzo was Sanzo, mocking and serious, scattering grains of wisdom that were like the wheat, raw and unchewable. But he also was in a rare good humor, and hadn't hit them yet.  
  
"Cheeky monk," Gojyo grumbled, and settled back to enjoy the breeze. Goku had already forgotten the old woman, but thought he could smell the scent of baked bread, far off. The smell was rich and warm and golden, like the sun on the fields, like Sanzo's hair. And because there had been nothing for five hundred years, he needed now five thousand years to grow tired of it all. And not in five thousand years would he grow tired of looking at Sanzo's hair. Not in five hundred thousand.  
  
For to grow tired of life was to grow tired of life. But to grow tired of Sanzo was to reject the sun that made life possible. It was richness to have somewhere to pour his heart, and so he did, satisfying his endless hunger to love with the freedom and joy of one who has not yet learned to expect a return.  
  
Yet.  
  
Five hundred years were filling with gratitude and greed.  
  
In dreams he never remembered unknown hunger sprang to life, and touched that hair with slim brown fingers, counting strands like a miser. In moments that never found their way into existence, he caressed the face that was calm as a stranger's judgment with callused palms, kissed and stroked and pressed and rubbed, seeking warmth like self-destruction.  
  
But for now he did not know his dreams and his golden eyes were cloudless as the sky.  
  
Ah, it was hard to be Son Goku, but perhaps harder not to be.  
  
.........................................  
  
It is hard to be Sha Gojyo, who holds his guilt aloft like a flaming torch, born guilty of being.  
  
Because there is no child whom a mother cannot love, but there are monsters whom a mother can only hate. Crimes that take shape and cry like a child, only to fool you into forgetting what they are. Eyes that are the color of blood, the blood of your mother's fingernails as she cries and scratches herself and screams, This is all your fault!  
  
And so every woman reminds him of his mother in some way that he cannot name. Perhaps it is the way they look at him, never as who he is, but as what they wish him to be. Perhaps it is the sounds they make, flesh slapping on flesh and the soft grunts that came from her room, but not from your father because your father was dead, was never coming back.  
  
He goes from woman to woman, seeking forgiveness but finding it not.  
  
Redemption lies in the gutter, in a life draining out by the gallon, in green eyes that hold so much pain that his own is swallowed up and lost in a long, slow heartbeat like the roll of thunder.  
  
.........................................  
  
Every night he thought about how nice it would be to kill Cho Gonou. There was no one else, he figured, standing in his way.  
  
"Damn, damn, damn!!" Gojyo threw down the cards in exasperation. "Nobody gets two straight flushes in a row!!" He glared balefully at the man across the table, who smiled. The firelight flickered on their faces each time the draft from the windows blew strong. The room smelled like all such rooms did, of smoke and bodies and cheap beer.  
  
"There, there, it's only my due. Because I was so unlucky in love," Hakkai said amiably, and sipped his beer. Hakkai never grew flushed, no matter how much he drank. Hakkai carried his sorrows lightly, except when it rained and they grew heavy and soaked.  
  
He raked a long-fingered bony hand through his red hair, grumbling. "I still say it's unnatural." He accepted Hakkai's superiority in many things as being only natural. He was both full human and a complete youkai, whereas he, Gojyo, was only half of each and thus could be neither. Hakkai was also educated, a natural teacher, whereas Gojyo's education had been in picking pockets and screwing whores. And running from angry, dangerous people with murder in their eyes. A natural truant.  
  
But cards and drink, he thought of as his realm--shabby as it was--where he ought to have been king. And yet Hakkai drank, and won, and drank, and won. And smiled. Every night, there it was, spread out like a winning hand whose truth could not be denied.  
  
Life made more sense after he started playing cards. It gave you the Ace of Spades when you needed the King of Hearts. You traded away a nine and it gave you two more. You only got a full house when the other fellow had four of a kind. And everyone cheated, and expected you to.  
  
He wondered what he had traded away that night in the rain, for a chance to resuscitate that smile. A shot at being the best card player. A lifetime of drinking and whoring. Not the best of hands, perhaps. And yet when he saw that smile it burned him, like ice. He craved acceptance, for the rawness that he was to close on someone else's wounds, pain on pain.  
  
He wanted Hakkai to smile for him, not at him. He wanted to strike sparks in those green eyes that saw so much and decided what they wanted to know. Longed so hard that it was an ache to grab him by the shoulders, to pull him in and kiss him until the lips bruised and the complaisance fled. Until Hakkai stopped smiling, stopped listening to the rain, and heard nothing but their breathing, ragged and mingling between them.  
  
But Cho Gonou lived in that faint cloud on the disc of his right eye, and would go on living for a while yet.  
  
It was hard to be Sha Gojyo, and have to wait. It is always hard to wait, but harder when you know that what you wait for may not come.  
  
...................................  
  
It is not hard to be Cho Hakkai. Nothing is hard when the worst has happened. Dead men feel no pain.  
  
He is dead. For They have pronounced him so, and buried him under a new name, marked with a new eye. And he cannot have outlived his lover, surely. If he lived the tenderness would be in his eyes and the vows would be on his lips, as they always were. When he was alive.  
  
But sometimes he feels the flicker and stir of the old life, rising like a zombie when it rains.  
  
He wears the enhancers as he once wore the shackles on his wrist, with good grace and an understanding that the punishment can never be enough. And no one can be as unattached to the world as he, who stays on only from a sense of duty. Sanzo knows this and respects him, envies him even, for in Sanzo there is a stubborn fire that he cannot put out, though it scorches at his heart.  
  
He believes in the principles of friendship, of course, the way he believes in the principles of mathematics, and has befriended them all.  
  
And he travels with them because to him, everywhere is as good as anywhere else, and once the mission has been given, who is he to refuse?  
  
The question keeps him awake, some nights.  
  
........................................  
  
"HAKKAI!! DUCK!!" The sound came, at once loud and dim, through the rain that spattered them with each gust of a wind gone mad. Gunfire sounded, but it was impossible to know where. He was already backpedaling to avoid the slash of claws before him, and threw himself backwards in obedience to the call. Above him, the curved blade swung in a great arc, barely interrupted as it sheared of the head of the attacker who had come from behind. Another spatter, this time warm.  
  
The monocle was completely covered in mud and water and gore, making his right eye useless. Water streamed over his face, forcing him to squint. A nearby flash of lightning turned his vision to colored snow.  
  
Before he could get up a shape blotted out the dim light. Instinctively he clapped his palms together and fired off a blast. As usual, there was no screech, only the smell of burning.  
  
His feet slipped in the mud, and he dropped to a crouch. Goku came swinging in from his right, and brought Nyoibu around with a crack, catching a youkai so hard in the top of his skull that Hakkai saw his eyeballs tear loose.  
  
Another crack from the gun, and another. Two left, before Sanzo reloaded.  
  
Abruptly, it was over, and only the four of them were left standing as the rain came down in torrents. Only Goku looked cheerful, unfazed by the sight of so much death. It was a part of his comrade that he could never understand, until he learned that after centuries of exile to nothingness even death had novelty. Gojyo was digging out his cigarettes, looking at the saturated carton in disgust. Even Sanzo looked wretched, bangs plastered over one eye, robes clinging to the narrow chest.  
  
He took the monocle from his eye and wiped it gently on his shirt.  
  
"Hey! Who do you suppose this bunch came from?" Goku walked around, looking curiously at the bodies that lay twisted and crumpled in the trampled ground.  
  
"Who knows? Could be Kougaiji, could be just a bunch of locals hit by the Wave." The monk's voice was disgusted as he looked at the gun. "With my luck water'll get in the cylinders and it'll be useless until I re-prime it."  
  
Gojyo kicked at one tentatively. "Only ten or so of 'em, but they sure put up a fight." He stiffened in shock as a claw clamped his boot, and stood as if hypnotized while the other uncurled a finger to point at him. The abdomen was little more than a smoking hole.  
  
Even now, Hakkai was sometimes amazed at what the youkai body could survive.  
  
Eyes full of madness and rainwater stared up, and the blood-flecked mouth spoke in a voice that only Gojyo heard over the sound of rain.  
  
The bullet and the chi blast fired simultaneously, and what was left of the head fell back to sizzle in the mud. It took a few vigorous kicks before the stiffened claw could be dislodged.  
  
Goku bounded to their side. "Gojyo!! Are you alright?"  
  
The half-youkai said nothing. Then, quietly at first, then in a shriek that rose above the wind--  
  
"Fuck this. FUCK THIS!!" and flung his weapon on the ground.  
  
Nobody moved. Goku was frozen in surprise, and perhaps a glimmering of pity. Sanzo had his arms in his sodden sleeves. Then Hakuryuu came, cheeping in distress, flapping heavily though the storm.  
  
He bent down and picked the shaku-jou up, gripping it near the top, close to the blade. Using the tail of his shirt, he wiped it off, and held it out to Gojyo. Beside them, Jiipu blinked his headlights inquisitively, his motor a whine.  
  
Gojyo stirred. "C'mon, let's get someplace warm before I fuckin' drown." He took the blade as he passed. Goku scrambled into the backseat after him, squelching as he went. Sanzo gathered his robes with the dignity of a queen.  
  
"What are you waiting for, Hakkai? Let's go!!"  
  
What was he waiting for? Another body to rise?  
  
He got in.  
  
It was a hard thing, no doubt, to have cheated Death only after having lost his taste for life. And a harder thing to find that life, the eternal traitor, was not a habit so easily dropped.  
  
.....................................  
  
It is a hard thing to be Genjyo Sanzou, although it should not be. Should not be hard to hold lightly to the world, as if it were a dragonfly in the hand, iridescent and vicious, fragile and fleeting. Should not be hard not to sprout attachments like a tree.  
  
He is a Sanzou, one of few, growing fewer. He belongs to a Way that says not that pain will fade, but that it should not exist. The Way demands patience and the sacrifice of all virtues and vices. And he will sacrifice them all willingly, except perhaps cigarettes, for the balance and the peace that it promises. For there are parts within him that cannot be reconciled, and he who seeks revenge must first dig two graves.  
  
He does his best not to love or be loved, for things live, and things die, regardless of that love. And he struggles not to care, because he has learned this, and understands it, and does not accept it.  
  
So he goes West, as it was chosen, as it was ordained, and he does not know whether it is the path which is his obstacle, or his obstacle that is the path.  
  
But whether or not he knows it, so it is.  
  
Tathata.*  
  
......................................  
  
In his travels he'd seen many things that men or youkai might call remarkable. And yet, once in a while, he couldn't help being amazed by Goku's appetite.  
  
He truly did eat everything, except one day when they came upon a man selling roasted birds, little birds on a stick, and then Goku opened his mouth in a silent O and backed away and wouldn't eat anything for almost two hours. And that night he cried in his sleep, but when he woke he said he'd forgotten.  
  
Goku never thought of why he loved Sanzo any more than the heart thinks of why it beats.  
  
In this, he was wiser than his master. Sanzo was keenly aware of the fact, resented it as he lay in his bed wondering what to do about it. Wondering why he had been sent out on a mission with this group that couldn't seem to make up their minds whether to be human or youkai.  
  
He twisted under the sheets, which scratched. The innkeeper said they'd been scalded for fleas. His mind danced, refusing to slip into the cool grooves of the sutras, twisted and darted from his grasp.  
  
From the monkey, learn of the monkey...**  
  
His hands still smelled of gunpowder. He had cleaned and emptied it out in the inn, thinking that it was impossible to fire a gun without feeling the recoil. Gliding back to the carnage of the afternoon, Sanzo wondered whether Kougaiji knew that form was emptiness, and emptiness form. Just because your mother was trapped and imprisoned didn't mean that she wasn't with you, and even if she were with you, you were still alone. But somehow he doubted that the Prince would listen to that.  
  
Below him, Goku snorted, and turned over in his sleep. The moonlight slid over him, finding no lines in that youthful face where it could pool. He watched it for a split second, before he reminded himself of that he was beyond, beyond, totally beyond and in no way felt the urge to stroke that smooth cheek. He did not even like it, or dislike it, more than he liked or disliked himself for having the urge. It was merely to be ignored, a distraction in the quest for enlightenment.  
  
Nirvana waited, vast and still, a golden pool for you to skinny-dip into Eternity. But Samsara called, an endless susurration of voices that flowed around your ears. One voice in particular, calling even in its sleep, an undertone of hunger and longing and love.  
  
In the other room Hakkai murmured something that made Gojyo's laugh ring out, loose and sharp.  
  
He felt his body to be exhausted, but could not sleep. Throwing off the sheets, he slid cross-legged into gassho***.  
  
If you meet the Buddha you must kill him, for enlightenment comes from within. If you met temptation, could you shoot it? Or were you supposed to let it slide, and defeat itself with wearying attempts?  
  
On the floor the boy breathed, long and deep and unbroken peace, but with the occasional snore.  
  
To master the self is to master all, to know the nature of evil is to render it harmless.  
  
So let me know this evil, he thought, and gave himself up to the trance. Golden eyes flickered at him like a trapped sun, and slowly he ran his hands over ropes of muscle wrapped around youthfully long limbs, tasted the salty warmth of sun-browned skin. He tilted the body in his lap ever so slightly backwards, and watched the head fall back, exposing the delicate lines of the throat. The sharp ache of arousal bit into him...  
  
And he snapped his mind away, and centered. The discipline of decades came to his aid, and he shut his eyes and floated, awash in the silence of meditation. There was such a thing as being unprepared for knowledge.  
  
The task he'd been set was fraught with peril, piled high with inconveniences. The Way was beset by both friend and foe and the goal was ever elusive. Journeying to the West was hard.  
  
But there was always the next day, and the drive to know what would be.  
  
Perhaps, stopping would have been even harder.  
  
The end.  
  
*Tathata = The unchanging law of universal truth, and the wisdom of that truth manifesting itself in our changing actions. Sort of like, the Road to Enlightenment exists, and innate to us is the wisdom to walk it. As far as I can tell, which is not very far. I'm not a Sanzou.  
  
**One of the several Zen Buddhist sayings I've borrowed and twisted, this one from Basho, haiku master: "From the pine / Learn of the pine / And from the bamboo / Learn of the bamboo."  
  
*** Japanese word for the position of the hands with palms placed together vertically.  
  
Yes. Totally unnecessary, plotless and pointless and just a little bit of smut to satisfy you and me. ^^ Gahhh, it's been so long since I've read any good SanzoxGoku smut... someone please write some more!! 


End file.
